She appeared in a promotional video. She was even scheduled to host two round tables at the Nice Climate Summit, Thursday and Friday. Ultimately it won’t be the case. On the eve of this event largely financed by the city and the metropolis, Laura Tenoudji-Estrosi, the wife of the mayor (Horizons) of Nice, “let the organizer know that she no longer wished to participate”, indicated the community to 20 minutesconfirming information from Figaro. His name has already disappeared from the program. A decision taken while elected environmentalists denounced a situation that could “raise major questions as to the existence of a link of interest between an elected official and a private organization”.
In a letter addressed Tuesday to the president of the metropolitan ethics committee, Juliette Chesnel – Le Roux, Jean-Christophe Picard and Fabrice Decoupigny alerted to this suspicion of conflict of interest. “The metropolis and the city of Nice grant direct and indirect subsidies of around 520,000 euros to La Tribune Events”, the organizer of the Nice Climate Summit, “while this company regularly employs a member of the family of an elected official belonging to to the executive,” they write.
“Unfounded and false accusations”
They specify, without naming Laura Tenoudji-Estrosi, that the activities in question “were not declared by the elected official to the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life [HATVP] “. “This situation can raise major questions about the existence of a link of interest between an elected official and a private organization,” they argue.
This Thursday, the two communities therefore confirm 20 minutes that the journalist, host and columnist has thrown in the towel in the face of “unfounded and false accusations”. They castigate elected officials “who are more busy creating a climate of suspicion than seeking solutions for the climate and for economic development”. And also specify that Laura Tenoudji-Estrosi, who works “all year round” and “for more than five years” with the economic journal The gallery, had “agreed to host, on a voluntary basis, two of the 35 sequences of the summit”.
The Nice Climate Summit had already made headlines in recent weeks with the defection of several experts announced on the program, who contest the partnership established by the event with Total Energies. EELV MEP Caroline Roose also announced the cancellation of her visit. “We have to stop the bad jokes. We experienced the hottest year on record in the world. It is not serious to organize an event on the climate in partnership with the most polluting firm in France,” she denounced in a press release.